The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Reader Persona

Believe it or not, you don’t need to have years of writing experience up your sleeve. Nor do you have to pore over a thesaurus to know the best words out there.

While those two are great and can definitely give you an edge, this one thing is also incredibly important:

You need to know your readers very well. Inside and out.

See, who you’re writing to matters a bit more than how you write.

Of course, you should still have considerably good writing skills…

…but without a clear idea of who would be reading your content, your article becomes unfocused and generalized.

This is where a reader persona comes in. Ever heard of it?

A reader persona is a character created out of real data, needs, and pain points. It’s your ideal customer — described in a set of very specific characteristics and behavior.

Basically, it’s the person you’re going to have in mind while you create your content. It’s the key ingredient that can take your content from good… to great.

The purpose of a reader persona

Now that you know what a reader persona is, let’s get into why you need one. Or specifically, how exactly can it make your content from good to great?

I mean, you can just write something, hit publish, and wait for readers to come, right?

Well, you definitely can! But without a reader persona, your content creation is missing one crucial step that could maximize its full potential.

So here’s what a reader persona does:

1. It will help you attract the right audience.

You know how you have to have the right kind of bait to lure your preferred fish?

That’s pretty much how a reader persona works, too. It steers your content planning into the right direction because you know the exact kind of content that appeals to your audience.

So when you’ve written the right content, your target audience will come swarming in.

2. It makes your content relatable.

A reader persona lets you know how your audience think, speak, and feel. Because of this, you can personalize your content so that it connects to them on a more personal level.

And so when they come across your article, they’d most likely go, “Hey, I get that too! I definitely need to read this!”

3. It makes your content relevant.

In creating a reader persona (which we’ll get to in a bit), you’ll have to determine what pains them. What challenges they face, issues they need to solve.

And so by knowing these, you can align your content to be helpful by addressing these exact problems.

You know exactly what they’re struggling with and so you come prepared with solutions. You’d be a hero in their eyes!

4. It helps you achieve your content marketing goals.

So what happens next when you’ve attracted the right audience with relatable, relevant, and helpful content?

Well, for one, it has become easier for you to achieve your content marketing goals! Whether it’s to spread awareness, gain blog subscribers, or make a sale… you already got the reader hook, line, and sinker!

What information do you need?

By now, you’re hopefully convinced that you need a reader persona. It’s the key to great content, after all!

Now let’s briefly break down the data you need to create one:

Demographics

These are the basic statistical data of your persona. It’ll include the following:

Age

Gender

Location

Job Industry

Religion

Income

Psychographics

Psychographics lets you in on your persona’s thoughts, values, and attitude. This would also include their hobbies, desires and goals, and fears.

Pain points

These are the problems your persona is facing and the issues they’re struggling with.

Where to scout for information

Lucky for you, it’s fairly easy to do research for your reader persona. Here are some sources you can go to for accurate and reliable information:

Analytical tools such as Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, etc.

Existing users/customers who are following you on social media.

Forums such as Quora, Reddit, etc.

All the data you collected can inform you on what and how to write a content.

That’s why it’s incredibly important that you get it right! But don’t worry — in the next section, we’ll take you step-by-step in researching for and creating a reader persona!

Action plan: How to Create a Reader Persona

Step 1: Research your customer demographics.

As a review, demographics are the basic statistical data of your persona. It’ll include the following:

Age

Gender

Location

Job industry

Religion

Income

Tip for VAs: You can also consult your client for ideas. Chances are they’ve already done some research about their target market. You can use it to get started on this task!

Your reader persona can start to take shape with these information. And you can easily find these data through the following options:

Option 1: Gather data from existing customers

Your existing customers basically personify your reader persona. So to know more about them, you have to take the time to either check out their profiles, engage with them, or do a survey.

Option 2: Use analytical tools

You can also refer to analytical tools such as Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics (depending on which platform you’re on). They easily give you a handful of data about your audience in just a few clicks!

Sidenote: Try out the HireBros Time Tracker to have better insight on your team’s work activity and productivity!

Step 2: Research your customer psychographics.

To recap, psychographics refers your customers’ psychological profiling based on their demographics. These would include:

Hobbies

Problems/challenges

Desires and goals

Fears

So while the demographics refers to the basic information of the group, psychographics are more about how they think, feel, and talk.

To look for these information, it’s best to start with forums. Luckily, every hobby, job, and problem in existence has a forum dedicated to it!

Let’s say you have a shoe company. To find relevant forums, you’d just have to key in the word “forum” combined with some relevant keywords and voila:

Discussion threads give you info on personalities, common problems, and perceptions of certain brands.

User profiles of those who posted can also give you additional information on your customer demographics. This could include their age, location, and gender.

Note: Depending on the forum, you’ll probably first have to register as a user before you can read replies or browse user profiles.

Check out the first hit we got from our search using this method:

The first two posts already identify a problem, another user’s brand recommendation, and their sentiment. Then, with just a click on the original poster’s name (bachslunch), you’ll be sent to his/her user profile.

Tip: You can do more research on Reddit. It’s an online forum with one of the most active communities that discusses literally anything.

Step 3: Look for business competitors.

Competitor research is also a quick way to learn more about your reader persona. You can look up your competitors through the following options: